Trying to Play Simple Animation in Unity For Art Test - Need Help!!

Bumper

Hey folks,

I'm up to my man-boobs in a VFX art test. It's software independent and I decided to use Unity, of which I have *a little* experience. That said, I need help!! :poly122:

All I want to do is play an animation that I've created with 3DS Max in Unity. Literally, hit play and see the animation. Nothing fancy. So far, no dice. I'm close to pulling out what little hair I have left.

I have animated (via rigid body) a grenade falling to the ground, rolling and coming to a stop. I have exported them mesh/animation via .FBX in two flavors:

Just the grenade mesh with the keys

Grenade mesh under a dummy, with the parent-dummy possessing the animation keys.

I import the .FBX(s) into Unity. From there I can preview the animation with the inspector, just fine. However, when I place it in the scene I get mixed results, depending on what I try.

The FBX with just the mesh with animation: I am forced to select Legacy under rig. Hit play and the grenade zips over the to origin, scales back down to it's import scaling AND only plays rotations and with no translation.

The FBX with the mesh and the dummy parent: I go to select Root Node under Rig and am only given the choice of 'grenade' (the child) not the dummy parent (that holds the animation). I think I'm misunderstanding what "Root node' means.
I create an Animator Controller, add my clip and then drag that to the grenade's Controller slot. Hit play!! Aaaand I get a weird floaty version of my animation. Poop.

This should be easy and I'm embarrassed that I'm having so much difficulty. Any help would be tremendously appreciated!!

Thank you!

gsokol

Pretty sure Unity doesn't accept vertex animation without some sort of plugin. Are you using a bone? I'm thinking you may actually need a bone with all the verts weighted to it instead of just linking the grenade to a node.

Bumper

gsokol wrote: »

Pretty sure Unity doesn't accept vertex animation without some sort of plugin. Are you using a bone? I'm thinking you may actually need a bone with all the verts weighted to it instead of just linking the grenade to a node.

Hey, thanks for your reply! No, no bones used. I'll give that a go real quick...

I would think, however that my export that uses a parent node (that posses all the animation) controlling the child geometry, would be pretty much the same.

Shadownami92

If it's just animating the bouncing of the grenade or something I probably would put it into the scene at 0,0,0 with no animation then parent it to an empty at 0,0,0 and then I would animate the grenade (child of empty) using Unity's own animation system.

Never tried setting it up in 3d software before import though since it was easier to just get it done in Unity without much fuss.

Bumper

gsokol wrote: »

Pretty sure Unity doesn't accept vertex animation without some sort of plugin. Are you using a bone? I'm thinking you may actually need a bone with all the verts weighted to it instead of just linking the grenade to a node.

Hey gsokol, thank you!

I redid my animation, using a bone and voila it works!

I'm still a bit iffy on the Root Node and will need to follow-up. If I select my bone as my root node, the grenade pops a rotation along it's vertical axis before animating. However, if I select 'grenade' which is the mesh (skinned in Max and not animated directly)it works fine. Head scratcher...

Nonetheless, I really appreciate your tip!

Bumper

Shadownami92 wrote: »

If it's just animating the bouncing of the grenade or something I probably would put it into the scene at 0,0,0 with no animation then parent it to an empty at 0,0,0 and then I would animate the grenade (child of empty) using Unity's own animation system.

Never tried setting it up in 3d software before import though since it was easier to just get it done in Unity without much fuss.

Thank you for your reply!

That's an excellent idea. I've got the imported anim problem licked *for now* but will keep your suggestion in mind for my next animation/physics sim need!